John Carmack Says VR Devs Are "Coasting On Novelty"

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Speaking at the Oculus Connect event, John Carmack said that developers need to push beyond the "novelty factor" in VR games. Carmack also talked about stuff like unacceptable loading times in VR games, saying that long loading times push people away from VR games and apps.

Speaking at the close of Oculus Connect last week, the company's CTO told the crowd that, as a community, VR developers, "need to be harder on ourselves." In particular, he implied that a lot of VR software doesn't offer the same value to consumer as a non-VR experience. "We are coasting on novelty, and the initial wonder of being something people have never seen before," he continued. "But we need to start judging ourselves. Not on a curve, but in an absolute sense. Can you do something in VR that has the same value, or more value, than what these other [non-VR] things have done?"
 
I don't disagree, but this is the guy that coasted on the same style of game for most of his career. I trust John's opinions about many things (mainly related to engines), but not game design.
You have to start somewhere, and a gimmick isn't necessarily a bad place. You have to get people's attention, then you can follow with a killer app.
 
Then John should buckle down and help game developers fix it...he's still one of the smartest if not the smartest game developers out there.
 
I agree with the Carmack...I don't see the novelty design wearing off for a long time either
 
I'd actually agree with Carmack on this one. The problem right now is that there is too much shovelware and novelty games and not enough full-fledged games to really make people want a VR setup. It's the Wii all over again. The novelty wears off at some point, so either the devs start stepping up and make games that are better as a VR experience, or they step out and let the current wave of VR die off. Whether it's indie devs or AAA devs, it doesn't matter who steps up but they need to do so soon.

This is a big reason I haven't purchased a VR kit yet (either for PC or PS4).
 
Just like the Wii! No devs to push the envelope to get it past the gimmicky phase. I've been saying already how unpolished and crappy most of the games for VR have been but it's early so I wait to see something great still. I think VR would be really worth it if they can develop worth while games or applications for it. I do like how Facebook is thinking outside the box for not just games for VR but for other uses as well like conference meetings etc.. VR has to be more than games for it to succeed I think but augmented reality might be what everyone rather have as it has more real world value.
 
The difference with the wii is that VR is actually good. Motion controls on wii stunk. Kinect stunk. VR is low res, but otherwise great.

As unpolished and crappy as the games are, they have been more fun for me than any $10+ million game I've played in years.

AR may be the way we end up using this kind of technology most of the time, but take an AR system, put a blindfold over it, and bam you have VR

Also carmack spends almost all of his time on the mobile side of VR and that's exclusively what his talk was about. There is a lot of creative stuff happening on the PC side.
 
I could see a VR game where you're an investigator that examines clues to solve crimes. Like LA Nore style but more involved. Of course, someone has to be willing to spend millions on a game that will only work optimally on a expensive VR headset. So you either risk big amounts of money for a game that only a few can enjoy, compared to adding the feature as a novelty and still keep majority of people happy.

There's a reason why a lot of VR games are Indie games. VR headsets need to go down in cost a lot before anyone will go beyond novelty.
 
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I think the skies are the limit for VR. Devs are stuck in a pinch because they don't want to over-commit to tech people haven't adopted yet. Especially with competing standards and a high price of entry.
If the PS4 VR set catches on, I think we'll probably see developers willing to take a chance on games that truly take advantage of what it can do. Either that or Sony needs to put someone like Naughty Dog on the case and give them carte blanche with the budget and creative direction.
I love the idea of RPG's that put you into a virtual world.
 
Bowman15 said:
Then John should buckle down and help game developers fix it...he's still one of the smartest if not the smartest game developers out there.
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He seems to enjoy and be best at working on lower level stuff like latency, image/video quality, etc... not a huge tools fan or director it seems...
 
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VR needs a few things to happen:
-Lower price to entry. Right now, it's expensive and very few people (not talking about the crowd here) have rigs to run it let alone $800 to buy the headset. This is wife-permission required level of money, so not happening at my house anytime soon.
-Real, full featured games. Not just tech demos. Kind of a chicken-vs-egg problem for software developers. Spend (risk?) lots of money doing this hoping you will at least break even. If there was already a lot of people with the equipment, the ROI is not as risky.
-Not having paid a lot of attention, how compatible are the games across the Rift and Vive? The exclusives need to stop (if they are still a thing).
 
What he's done in the past has no relevance to these comments; if anyone had said this I would agree. VR might have unlimited potential, but we seem to have no idea what that might might look like so we are stuck in a "me too" loop.

It seems Shakespearean that VR is built for a first-person experience, but first-person gaming - the assumed vehicle for VR to hit the big time with - makes people puke. That and the need for an empty warehouse to run about in because while they may have the perspective aspect down, movement is still problematic. The issue between what direction you are moving in and how that is achieved, what your hands are doing and where you are looking still haven't been properly dealt with. So we get MSPaint in 3D.
 
VR is 0.2% of the market according to Steam. No one is going to do anything other than gimmicks for that small percent. Lots of devs pass on Linux because it only has 0.9% of the market and the cost to port to Linux is much, much lower than making a new game with VR or adding VR to a current game.
 
He's right if the developers only rely on the WOW factor VR will fail. I have only played the cardboard, but glorified tech demos will kill VR.....
 
I wouldnt call a lot of the games gimmicky. "short" or "incomplete" are better descriptions. The Gallery: Episode 1 doesn't have any gimmicks. It's a complete and very well done experience, but it's about 1/5 of what you'd expect the average single player game length to be.

The reasoning is the same, though. Depth takes time and money. A lot of VR games are being made by small teams or even individuals, and the tools and rules of VR are very much in flux right now.

The passion of developers is one thing that gives me hope for a steady stream of content. Many of them have left more stable careers to make VR games because they believe so much in the potential. That's something that I never saw with wii or kinect.

steakman1971 said:
VR needs a few things to happen:
-Lower price to entry. Right now, it's expensive and very few people (not talking about the crowd here) have rigs to run it let alone $800 to buy the headset. This is wife-permission required level of money, so not happening at my house anytime soon.
-Real, full featured games. Not just tech demos. Kind of a chicken-vs-egg problem for software developers. Spend (risk?) lots of money doing this hoping you will at least break even. If there was already a lot of people with the equipment, the ROI is not as risky.
-Not having paid a lot of attention, how compatible are the games across the Rift and Vive? The exclusives need to stop (if they are still a thing).
Click to expand...

Points 2 and 3 are kind of at odds with each other. Only Oculus at this point is willing to spend real money on bigger games that can't possibly make back their budgets. For this to make any sense strategically (e.g. driving people to use their platform), they need to be at least timed exclusive.
 
Youn said:
his contribution? he's done a helluva lot of work for VR, without him it may likely be 1 year behind where we are now...
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I disagree. With the amount of mud slinging we've seen on the origin of Oculus I think at best they coasted on other's works.

Valve was on this before Oculus even existed. Then Palmer got the grand tour. Then Oculus spammed the world with "dev kits." Then, when Vive shipped we got a more complete experience with a more polished software stack and hardware offering (IE: controllers, room scale). When you consider the accusations against Carmack regarding IP and actual hardware by his former employer it's hard to see Oculus as an innovator here, assuming those accusations have merit.

FWIW, I own both VR systems and both are solid, but I don't see Carmack as an innovator here in any way. He rolled in very late into the Oculus life cycle. What was it that he brought to the product other than gamer rockstar street cred?

HOWEVER, his point is totally valid. This is all new and devs need to find ways to do new things that really grab players. It can't be "this is just like FRANCHISE X but in VR!"
 
HoosegowFlask said:
There's no killer app and no compelling reason for most to buy. Almost nobody wants to spent $800+ and the hardware to support it just to play a handful of indie games.
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+1. There hasn't been a "Crysis game/tech demo" yet that has grabbed the headlines (as others have mentioned).

I do LOVE that Kyle has been investing time/money/resources in those VR reviews, though. It's definitely the next big thing and, sometimes, it's really a blast to be on that cutting-edge frontier.

Just as long as it isn't like this, lol:


Although the synthwave band is quite cool:



:cool:
 
ianken said:
I disagree. With the amount of mud slinging we've seen on the origin of Oculus I think at best they coasted on other's works.

Valve was on this before Oculus even existed. Then Palmer got the grand tour. Then Oculus spammed the world with "dev kits." Then, when Vive shipped we got a more complete experience with a more polished software stack and hardware offering (IE: controllers, room scale). When you consider the accusations against Carmack regarding IP and actual hardware by his former employer it's hard to see Oculus as an innovator here, assuming those accusations have merit.

FWIW, I own both VR systems and both are solid, but I don't see Carmack as an innovator here in any way. He rolled in very late into the Oculus life cycle. What was it that he brought to the product other than gamer rockstar street cred?

HOWEVER, his point is totally valid. This is all new and devs need to find ways to do new things that really grab players. It can't be "this is just like FRANCHISE X but in VR!"
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You don't have the facts right and are being way too dismissive of carmack's contributions.

He was working with palmer in 2012. Before the kickstarter, before oculus was even a corporation. He was demoing a duct taped headset prototype by himself at e3 2012. How is that rolling in late? He wrote a lot of the early API and solved difficult low level problems while still working at id. That is why Zenimax is claiming he stole IP, not because other people there were working on it, but because he was using company resources (his brain and his computer) to do work for someone else. At worst, Carmack essentially stole from himself (if their claims are true, which hasn't been settled yet).

Also, the millions of gear VR headsets sold would likely not exist without carmack's work on mobile VR.

Valve was working on VR at the same time, but Palmer never saw any of it until 2013, well after their successful kickstarter.

It does seem that oculus lifted some of the stuff they saw from valve, but it's not unlikely that they could have arrived at the same place on their own, especially after getting the backing of Daddy Facebucks. And now, Facebook definitely seems to be leading the way in VR research. Advanced prototypes of markerless tracking, ATW, ASW. Does valve have any of those?
 
He's right.. and when it comes to the price of VR that has nothing to do with it. Just had a buddy drop a whole lot of money on a new shiny G-sync money that cost the same amount as VR would have. Funny thing is, he's also one of the guys that bitched about how expensive VR was. When he bought the monitor, I pointed that out to him and said if VR was what was important to him he would have spend that on the Rift or Vive instead of the monitor. He said, "good point". Point is, there isn't enough compelling content that makes VR a must have. All these fancy tech demo have shown us VR's potential, but the time has passed for tech demos and they need to start translating to full fledge experiences.

I had hoped that the stagnation we've seen lately in VR software had a lot to do with the touch controllers not being out yet. Now that the controllers are shipping, I think the flood gates will start opening up with much better compelling content.
 
as a new Vive owner I can agree with what he is saying.. I am finding it hard to justify 30 - 60$ VR game purchases when I know their content wise is only a few hours and just find myself siting on the fence for a lot of games
 
I think he's kind of right. I think he misses the point that inherently, VR can only really expand/improve two things. The dispaly of the game, and the UI of the game. At the moment, it seems to actually limit game mechanics compared to the keyboard and mouse or gamepad that's problematic, and a large reason as to why most of the games seem to be very shallow and relying on novelty.

Which is why AR is so much more compelling. It has the potential to bring whatever your game mechanics are into the real world, which could entirely suck, but at least comes with the potential to very, very different. And very different and cool/fun is what makes for watershed changes in consumer habits.
 
Youn said:
his contribution? he's done a helluva lot of work for VR, without him it may likely be 1 year behind where we are now...
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More than 1 year, he set the foundation for 3d gaming lol. Without 3d gaming, VR would be no where.

And the games that came out on his engines, weren't designed by him, can't blame him for that, he just engine programming and that was it.
 
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Bowman15 said:
Then John should buckle down and help game developers fix it...he's still one of the smartest if not the smartest game developers out there.
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Game playability, is not something anyone can do, that is why there are specialist to do that, programmers usually aren't the best people to ask about playability, game design, user interface, etc.
 
H-street said:
as a new Vive owner I can agree with what he is saying.. I am finding it hard to justify 30 - 60$ VR game purchases when I know their content wise is only a few hours and just find myself siting on the fence for a lot of games
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As a Rift owner, I agree. I've basically stopped buying software except for sales and even then, I'm expecting less. But I still have to say "I expected to be here"......I figured it would be a year or two before we saw "better than Mobile-quality" games.
 
Are there not whole AAA games like Dirt Rally that plays well on the Occulus? Many says it is rather well done, menu's work etc. Also how about EVE Valkyrie? Is that not also a full title?

Next year Doom and I presume Quake will be on VR - More AAA games. Is John talking more about a new genre for VR titles, stuff that has not been done before?
 
I have been playing Minecraft with the Vive Craft mod for a couple of months now, it is super awesome! I also have been messing around with a flight sim that works with the vive, it is truly a breathtaking experience. I am completely sold on VR and cant wait for it to continue to grow. It is the greatest experience I have had since replacing my ATI Rage 128 with a 9500 Pro as a teen!
 
I think that is his point. You are enjoying games modded to work with vr. But what game to enjoy as much that was developed from the ground up for vr?
 
If there is one thing the consumer computing industry does too well, it is training their customers not to be an early adopter.
 
H-street said:
I think that is his point. You are enjoying games modded to work with vr. But what game to enjoy as much that was developed from the ground up for vr?
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H3VR
Raw Data
The Lab
The Blu
Vanishing Realms
Job Simulator
Onward
Space Pirate Trainer
etc...

Tons of games that are not just modded to work with VR. The problem is, he has a point in that many of these games are somewhat shallow and rely on the "WOW" factor for much of the initial enjoyment. Longevity is a bit of a problem.

I would reply to Mr. Carmack...put your money where your mouth is, then. Start showing us some badass VR titles.
 
MavericK said:
I would reply to Mr. Carmack...put your money where your mouth is, then. Start showing us some badass VR titles.
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All due respect for his programming and code optimizing work on the original Doom and Quake, but he looks hopelessly out of depth in modern gaming.
 
Doom 2016 was pretty great I thought... he deserves more credit for that one...
 
I agree as its the main reason I have held off. I dont think all game genres translate over to VR well but I think certain genres would do good. I would have thought someone would have a fatal frame style game its very basic in the controls bu the story is what pulls you in.
 
Bowman15 said:
Then John should buckle down and help game developers fix it...he's still one of the smartest if not the smartest game developers out there.
Click to expand...
I doubt what ever he makes facebook would share with vive, and he knows it.
 
Domingo said:
I don't disagree, but this is the guy that coasted on the same style of game for most of his career. I trust John's opinions about many things (mainly related to engines), but not game design.
You have to start somewhere, and a gimmick isn't necessarily a bad place. You have to get people's attention, then you can follow with a killer app.
Click to expand...

Isn't that a misconception? John was never a game designer. He has always been a engineer first and always was involved with the technical side of things. So writing codes for the engines and what-not. He has a point though and there is no reason for you to discredit him; even you said you trust him mainly related to game engines; well, that is all he has been involved in. He didn't say E1M1 needs to look like this, or the story needs this, or we need these types of guns... he's not a game designer but he is right in saying that VR is becoming a novelty and if developers don't start taking drastic steps to improve their end-products VR will just disappear into obscurity.
 
I've even started to question John's engineering credibility, what with the new Doom being the first iD game in over a decade that ran smoothly without strange hiccups or microstutter, and he wasn't involved.

Just saying...
 
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